text:
About the Prancing Turtle
Contact Us
Changelog / known issues
How to submit logs
Release Notes
Useful Links
Ranks / records
Comet of Ahnket
Easy mode
Normal mode
Hard mode
Duke Eblius
Easy mode
Normal mode
Hard mode
Easy mode
Normal mode
Hard mode
Easy mode
Normal mode
Hard mode
Lord Fionn
Easy mode
Normal mode
Hard mode
Nightstalker Caelon
Easy mode
Normal mode
Hard mode
Greenscale's Blight
Duke Letareus
Infiltrator Johlen
Lord Greenscale
Oracle Aleria
Prince Hylas
Hammerknell Fortress
Inquisitor Garau
Inwar Darktide
Matron Zamira
Rune King Molinar
Soulrender Zilas
Vladmal Prime
Intrepid Gilded Prophecy
Anrak the Foul
Easy mode
Normal mode
Hard mode
Easy mode
Normal mode
Hard mode
Easy mode
Normal mode
Hard mode
Easy mode
Normal mode
Hard mode
Intrepid Rise Of The Phoenix
General Silgen
High Priest Arakhurn
Seething Core
Mind of Madness
Dark Genesis
Lady Envy
Lady Justice
Normal mode
Hard mode
Lord Arak
Pillars of Justice
Pure Evil
The Arisen Arak
The Enigma
Mount Sharax
The Yrlwalach
Tartaric Depths
Council of Fate
The Bastion of Steel
Commander Isiel
Titan X
The Rhen of Fate
Drekanoth of Fate
Easy mode
Normal mode
Hard mode
Easy mode
Normal mode
Hard mode
Skelf Brothers
Easy mode
Normal mode
Hard mode
Easy mode
Normal mode
Hard mode
- Divine Fury -
Absurd Ventures
Arm Dearg
Away From Reality
Beep Beep Ima Jeep
Bloody Teddybears
Born on the Vaiyuu
Casually Elite
Chocolate Pancakes
Crisis Crusade
Critical Hit
Cruel Regulators
Cryptic Souls
Dawn of Terror
Defer Death
Dem overclockers
Die irrsinnige Horde
Die Verteidiger des Irrsinns
Dunkler Orden
Enduring Dawn
Finding Nemo
Fluffy Bunnies of Doom
Going Commando
Illusion of light
Immortal Tyrants
Inner Circle
La Main Occulte
Last Dawn
Les barbouzes
Les Grognards
Letalis Sanctus
Lonely Sheep
Mistakes Were Made
New Horizons
New World order
No Play Time
Nocturium Vendetta
Nordic Guild Union
OG Cori
Old Farts
Old Timers Guild
Oscura Simmetria
Pickup Squads
Sacred Fire
Sanctum Guardians
Shaï Hulud
Shh Don't fight it
Shotglass Detectives
Something Stupid
Still Undecided
Suicide squad
Temple of Light
The Art of War
The Dawntreaders
The Fires of Heaven
The Kiwis
The Royal Guards of Valhalla
The Time Bandits
The Union
The Watch
Trash on Farm
Uber Assassins
Union Transcendante
Unity Ch II
Valkyrian Descent
Veritas et Aequitas
Donate to PT
Site stats
Log in
Comments and feedback are always welcome either in-game at
[email protected]
[email protected]
or via email at
[email protected]
Release notes for Version 1.1.10 (May 11th, 2016)
Damage / Healing taken pages
Fixed an issue that was preventing the correct interaction pages to pop up when looking for incoming damage or healing graphs
Release notes for Version 1.1.9 (February 18th, 2016)
Fixed a query that was preventing some support leaderboards from displaying correctly
Release notes for Version 1.1.8 (February 16th, 2016)
The single-target leaderboard has been enabled for Lady Justice, in the Mind of Madness instance
Support leaderboards are here, alongside the rest of the leaderboards for any given encounter. Please report any bugged or strange parses!
Clerics using defiler are now considered DPS rather than Support
Sessions and Encounters
Single target leaderboards for Anrak the Foul in Intrepid Gilded Prophecy should now include encounters parsed from German combat logs
Graph Display
Graphs now have a 5-second rolling average display on top of the options that were previously there
Release notes for Version 1.1.7 (December 16th, 2015)
Menu / navigation
Under 'My Account', you'll now see two options, 'Menu format' and 'Guild menu'. The menu format allows you to change whether you are presented with a smaller, icon-based menu or the existing text-based menu. This should help users on mobile devices if the menu is set to icon-only! Also, You can set whether the menu that displays guilds (sorted by first letter) fron the ranks / records navigation menu.
Sessions and Encounters
Added support for French and German logs with regard to some Mind of Madness bosses, Lady Envy, Fauxmire, Lord Arak and the trash mob Pure Evil.
Unsuccessful encounters older than 6 months will be removed over the coming weeks, and sessions that are left with no encounters will also be removed. The 6-month limit is a tentative one and may be reduced further at a later date.
Fixed a bug where the 'Player Damage Taken' page would fail to render for Pure Evil, in the Mind of Madness instance
On the session detail page, original session uploaders and guild administrators can now select multiple encounters and remove them simultaneously, rather than having to do so one by one
Removing an encounter now flags it for removal and removes it from the session list. Actual deletion happens in the background and you no longer have to wait for the removal to complete before being redirected to the encounter list for that particular session.
Graph Display
Graphs on DPS/HPS/APS pages as well as player breakdowns have been changed to a spline format, and should be easier to interpret than before.
As the graph displays have changed, particularly on ability and target breakdown pages, only the Total and Average series are displayed by default. Clicking the name of an ability underneath the graph will toggle the visibility of that particular series on the graph.
Release notes for Version 1.1.6 (November 11th, 2015)
Session detail pages (where the encounters within the session are listed) now include an overall rank by kill time, and rank by raid DPS
The 'find a session' menu has been removed, but if you'd still like to look for sessions by a boss or instance, type the boss name or instance into the search box and hit enter / click Search
Guild rosters are now sorted by player name rather than rank, so when promoting and demoting players, the list won't jump around and re-sort itself
Within the raid progression panel, bosses are broken into the varying difficulty settings, and encounters with only one difficulty are considered 'Normal'
The raid progression panel now includes links to track guild performance over time on a specific encounter, as well as player performance over time
Guild administrators can now remove guild members via the guild index page. Those with admin access to their guild will see a delete / ban icon next to each member apart from themselves
Release notes for Version 1.1.5 (October 23rd, 2015)
Some internal changes have been put into place in order to resolve some of the issues where leaderboards weren't being updated
Primalists now have their own section of the single target leaderboards
Player role detection
Rogues that aren't tanking now should not show up as tanks in the event that they use some Riftstalker abilities
Some encounters across both Hammerknell Fortress and Intrepid Gilded Prophecy have had their HP values tweaked to bring them in line with the correct values in-game
Release notes for Version 1.1.4 (October 9th, 2015)
Updated HP values for raid bosses in Hammerknell Fortress, Intrepid Gilded Prophecy and The Rhen of Fate
Encounters with more than one difficulty setting have been retroactively validated and those that were incorrectly flagged as easy instead of normal, and normal instead of hard, have been updated.
Detection for Primalist roles should now work as intended and show up on the encounter overview / damage / healing / absorption pages.
Primalists now have their own class section on the rank / record pages like the other classes
Release notes for Version 1.1.3 (October 2nd, 2015)
Player DPS comparison pages
Each compared ability now has a small chart underneath it, depicting when the ability was used by each player, and the amount of damage it dealt at that point in time
The crits / hits / swings / crit rate text at the top of the page has been expanded a little to avoid confusion about the number of each type. Swings indicate the number of times an ability was used, Crits are critical hits and Hits are non-critical hits.
Records and ranks
Single target leaderboards have been added for selected fights in currently supported encounters. More may be added over time, but due to how some encounters are designed, this isn't feasible for every encounter. Single target DPS statistics are updated at the same time as the rest of the leaderboards - every 15-20 minutes.
Encounters currently tracking single target dps:
Hammerknell Fortress
: Murdantix, Sicaron, Estrode, Matron Zamira and Grugonim
Intrepid Gilded Prophecy
: Anrak the Foul, Thalguur, Guurloth, Uruluuk
Tyrant's Forge
: Johan
The Rhen of Fate
: Ungolok, Drekanoth of Fate and Finric
Mount Sharax
: Jinoscoth and The Yrlwalach
Release notes for Version 1.1.2 (September 27th, 2015)
Added a fix for encounters that exist within two sessions. These should no longer throw exceptions when trying to view encounter details
Release notes for Version 1.1.1 (September 17th, 2015)
Ranking system & records
Encounters that are set to private are no longer shown in the ranks/records section. This is only affected by the public or private status of an encounter, and not the session itself. If an entire session is set to private when it's uploaded, administrators or uploaders still have the ability to change the privacy of each encounter individually if they wish it be considered for the ranking/record system. To make an encounter public if it's currently set to private, click the lock icon next to it on the session detail screen.
Recent sessions
The most recent sessions on the homepage now don't show sessions that have been marked as private.
Submitting logs
Instructions around how to upload logs via FTP (a much more reliable upload method) have been written. Under the help menu, check out 'How to submit logs' for more information.
Release notes for Version 1.1.0 (August 22, 2015)
It's finally here!
Encounter Ranking System
The first part of the ranking system has been released, and it includes kill timers as well as DPS/HPS/APS records per fight. You can find these ranks by clicking the 'Find a session' menu up the top of the screen.
Find a session -> Encounters -> Pick an instance -> Pick an encounter
For encounters that have more than one difficulty setting, you can also select which difficulty you'd like to see the rankings and records for.
Different sets of ranks and a way of tracking personal encounter ranks will be added at a later date, but players are encouraged to ensure that they have registered an account, added their characters and joined guilds. Having your character registered here will mean that when personal tracking is added, you'll be able to see your own stats / records from within your account management section, rather than having to find each encounter individually.
Statistics and ranks are updated every 20 minutes
Encounters and sessions
Difficulty detection has been added for both the Intrepid Gilded Prophecy and Rhen of Fate instances.
Some additional checking has been put in place to avoid the 00:00:00 encounters that have been popping up. The checking that was previously put in place was silently crashing, and actually works now!
Boss lists on session pages (which ones were and weren't killed during a session) are now sorted by instance, and then by boss name
A whole bunch of boss portraits have been updated
Release notes for Version 1.0.15 (August 9th, 2015)
So many internal changes have been happening over the last several weeks. Development has been slower than usual due to time constraints, but it has definitely been continuing!
User Interface
Various bits and pieces have been reworked a little and should be a bit friendlier to use. The login page should now render better on mobile devices or screens with smaller resolutions than a standard desktop PC.
The popup pages for character interaction / breakdown charts now have the player name and the interaction type in the title.
The ranking system has been progressing well and was nearly ready for release immediately prior to Trion's release of Rift 3.3. As several encounters now have been given an easy mode or a hardmode option, proper difficulty detection for these needs to be implemented before the ranking system can be released properly. Sorry for the delay!
Added special handling for the Inwar Darktide encounter within Hammerknell Fortress to ensure that the encounter isn't broken or split even with long periods of downtime between phases. Specifically, the timeout has been increased to 30 seconds for this particular encounter.
Parsing methods
Revamped the process that logs go through after being uploaded (both via web and FTP), that allow more time for users uploading logs via slow connections that would have previously made uploaded files appear to vanish and never be parsed.
Release notes for Version 1.0.14 (June 8th, 2015)
Added some more boss portraits: Jinoscoth (Mount Sharax), Ungolok (Rhen of Fate), Skelf Brothers (Rhen of Fate), Drekanoth of Fate (Rhen of Fate), Finric (Rhen of Fate), Estrode (Hammerknell Fortress), and Inquisitor Garau (Hammerknell Fortress). As with previous portraits, these will show up on the overview pages for matching encounters.
Parsing methods
Extended the timeout for encounters to 15 seconds, up from 10. Encounters are deemed finished when no NPCs have taken damage for 15 seconds, and this change helps allow for situations (particularly seen within the Drekanoth of Fate encounter) where there is a small period of downtime within an encounter that is still active.
Release notes for Version 1.0.13 (May 21st, 2015)
Added some boss portraits! These can be seen on the instance search pages or on the overview for a particular encounter, if a portrait exists, and more will be added over time.
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug that occurred while comparing breakdowns where one or more abilities did no damage
Release notes for Version 1.0.12 (May 5th, 2015)
Added the ability to copy and paste an encounter's parse, similar to in-game parsing tools. This is visible at the top of each overview page within an encounter, such as 'Player Damage Done' or 'NPC Healing Taken'
Added the ability to compare DPS breakdowns for players within a single encounter. On the 'Damage Done' pages, select the players you'd like to compare, and hit the green compare button down the bottom of the page.
Release notes for Version 1.0.11 (May 4th, 2015)
Login and links
If you're asked to login after requesting a page, you should properly be redirected to that page after logging in
Fixed a bug that broke a bunch of pages if you logged in with an account that contained one or more characters without guilds
Added support for Expert and Raid practice dummies for French and German combat logs
Release notes for Version 1.0.10 (April 27, 2015)
Added support for uploading logs via FTP. See the notes on the top of the upload pages or click
for more info
There is now search functionality for Guilds, Players and Encounters! Type your search terms into the search box in the top menu, and hit Enter or the Search button to view the results.
Added limited support for French combatlogs - support for these will improve over time with testing from the guilds that log in French!
Drekanoth of Fate encounters will now properly show up in sessions created from German and French combatlogs
Release notes for Version 1.0.9 (April 21, 2015)
Guild Privacy
Added a new option:
Progression Visibility
! This setting controls whether users outside of your guild can see your guild's progression in terms of what boss you have or have not killed. This information is shown on the guild details page, and the default setting for this is
Guild Details
Added a new section under the existing guild details for
Raid Progression
. This progression tracker is automatically updated whenever a new session is uploaded. Here's a snippet of what the tab may look like
The navigation menu has changed a little, and the 'Find a session' menu now gives you the ability to find sessions by guild, instance, or boss.
Release notes for Version 1.0.8 (April 20, 2015)
Sessions and Encounters
Fixed a bug that would cause a very small number of Rune King Molinar & Prince Dollin attempts to not appear in the session list
If you navigate to an encounter that you don't have access to, you'll see a message saying so, rather than being redirected straight back to the homepage
The instances seen in any given session are now shown next to the session link
Buffs and Debuffs
Made some changes to how the buffs and debuffs are stored, so the UI for both of these should be much faster now!
Release notes for Version 1.0.7 (April 16, 2015)
Guild Privacy
In addition to being able to set default privacy for encounters when you upload a session and then being able to modify individual encounter privacy from the session detail page, guild administrators can now also control various privacy features on a global level. These privacy features are available (for guild administrators) from
My Account
> Guild name > Guild Privacy.
The default settings look like this:
The current settings are shown, along with an option to toggle them to the opposing value.
Guild Roster
privacy setting controls whether users outside of your guild can see the list of guild members and their rank. The default setting for this is
Visibility in Lists
privacy setting controls whether your guild will appear in lists such as the Guild Sessions navigation menu. The default setting for this is
Visibility in Rankings
privacy setting controls whether both guild and member (individual player) parses will be counted in, and shown on the ranking pages. The default setting for this is
Visibility in Search
privacy setting controls whether your guild will appear in search results. The default setting for this is
Session Visibility
privacy setting controls whether users outside of your guild can see uploaded sessions. The default setting for this is
None of these privacy settings prevent players being able to find the guild and apply for it via their 'My Account' section.
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug that would redirect users to the homepage instead of showing the buff or debuff uptime graphs
Release notes for Version 1.0.6 (April 14, 2015)
Encounter detail pages
Updated the look of the Buff & Debuff graphs to bring them inline with the rest of the site
Release notes for Version 1.0.5 (April 9, 2015)
Encounter overviews
Fixed an issue where some tanks were being seen as DPS for the role breakdown. Cached parses won't be updated though, so please let us know if you notice any past encounters with incorrect tanks & they'll be updated.
Release notes for Version 1.0.4 (April 7, 2015)
Sessions can now be renamed by the original uploader or any administrator of the guild the session was uploaded for
Character and Guild Management
When you remove a character from your account, if it was the last remaining character in a guild, the guild will also be removed.
Release notes for Version 1.0.3 (April 6, 2015)
Added a link within the encounter nav bar that will let you jump back to the session overview
Fixed a bug in the back-end that prevented some sessions from being removed properly
Release notes for Version 1.0.2 (April 5, 2015)
Encounter detail pages
Player deaths within encounters (click 'Deaths' on the encounter navigation bar once you're viewing an encounter) now also display source player names, instead of blank text if they were killed by another player rather than an NPC
Release notes for Version 1.0.1 (April 3, 2015)
Guild Management
Demoting a character from Administrator to Uploader now has a popup message to confirm the action
Guild administrators can no longer 'accidentally' demote themself to Uploader (without a chance to reverse the change). If you're the only character in a guild, the promotion and demotion text links have been disabled.
Uploading Logs
There's now a link underneath the upload controls that will allow you to jump straight to your session's detail page once your log has been uploaded. Don't forget that once your upload has completed, the turtle on the receiving end still has to unzip your combatlog, parse it, and save the encounters to the database (which can take several minutes, depending on the size of your log)
Release notes for Version 1.0 (April 3, 2015)
Release the turtles!
First of all, an enormous amount of work has been done to get the site to this point, and it would not have been possible without the number of players and guilds that have provided logs and/or helped in the early testing. There are lots of you that have helped to varying degrees, but I would particularly like to thank the guilds
The Prancing Turtle has been designed with guilds in mind, and so users are requred to hold the 'Uploader' or higher rank within a guild to be able to upload sessions. This isn't aimed solely at high-end guilds, but should work for guilds on any level, casual, hardcore or otherwise. Run a regular raid PUG? No problems!
Registration is open to everyone and is available by clicking on
or the Register link in the top right corner of the site.
Character and guild management is accessible from
My Account
or clicking the My Account link which in the top right corner of the site. You'll also find the option to change your password and set your timezone here. Setting a timezone is handy if you want to see sessions and encounters show up in 'local' time.
After you login, you'll find the
Upload a session
link in the main menu bar, click it and follow the instructions to begin uploading!
Guild Management
Anyone can create a guild after they have created one or more characters, and guilds should be approved once created. Follow the steps on-screen once you've created a guild to get it approved quickly.
Creating a guild with a particular character will automatically make that character an
and give it the power to accept or decline applications as well as promote and demote guild members. Be careful when promoting or demoting users! The roster is sorted by rank and then character name, so adjustments to the ranks can result in the roster being reordered, which in turn can result in the wrong characters being modified if you are performing subsequent actions too quickly.
Uploading logs
To create a log that you can use to upload here, simply type
while you're playing Rift. In your general chat tab, you should see 'Combat logging enabled', and Rift will begin appending data to a file called CombatLog.txt within your Documents/Rift folder. When you have finished logging, type
again, and the game will disable combat logging. Your log is now ready to compress!
If you intend on logging a raid (for example), make sure you rename the previous CombatLog.txt to something else (if it exists), as Rift appends data to a CombatLog.txt file if it finds one. If no such file exists, it will be created when you turn logging on. Renaming or deleting previous logs ensures that you don't get duplicate encounters, such as last week's raid, or the last dummy parse that you were looking into.
If a character holds the rank of Uploader or higher, it will be able to upload logs on behalf of the guild that it's in. When uploading, please follow the instructions carefully, as files that are not compressed in .zip format or are named incorrectly will be deleted immediately. The process itself is fairly simple once you have your log file - ensure that you have disabled combat logging, compress the log using your tool of choice, rename the .zip file to the filename that you were given when creating the session (e.g. ai4nt4g7sdfl.zip), and drag & drop it into the upload area!
When creating a session, the 'Make encounters public' box is checked. If you would like to ensure that only guild members can see the detailed encounter information, for sessions contained in the log you're about to upload, uncheck this box. You can change encounter privacy at any point in the future, but this setting will determine the initial privacy state of the encounters when they are saved. To characters that are not in your guild, encounter length, raid DPS, the number of player deaths and the Kill / Wipe result for each encounter are the only details that are visible.
Once the upload completes, the log will be extracted to a temporary folder, parsed by our team of fine-toothed-comb-wielding turtles, and then saved to the database. The original .zip file is also archived so if something goes horribly wrong (i.e. you accidentally trash an encounter or two), it can be reimported without having to upload the entire log again.
English and German logs are currently supported, and while logs in other languages may partially work, support has not been added for them. Contact us if this is an issue!
Viewing sessions and encounters: The basics
A list of the 10 most recent sessions are shown on the home page, but if you are looking for a specific session, you can use the Guild menu item from the main menu bar to locate the guild, and then the session that you're looking for.
Clicking on a session will show you the session overview, a small amount of detail about the whole session, and a breakdown of the encounters found in the log(s). To view more information about an encounter, click the 'View Encounter' link next to the encounter record. If you can't see the link, chances are that the encounter has been set to private, but you'll see some text there to let you know that this is the case.
The original uploader for any given session has the ability to modify privacy on an encounter-by-encounter level by clicking on the lock icon for any encounter record. Clicking
will change an encounter from private to public, just as clicking
will change an encounter from public to private.
Viewing sessions and encounters: Advanced information
Clicking 'View Encounter' will take you to the Encounter Overview page, where you can see basic details about the encounter, the makeup of the group, Buffs, Debuffs and abilities cast by NPCs. Can't remember the name of the ability that you were supposed to interrupt? Have a look at the overview and find it!
Once you're viewing an encounter, you will get a second navigation bar up the top of the screen that will make it easier to find individual sections of the encounter detail. View incoming and outgoing damage, healing and absorption on both players and NPCs from the menu options provided. There is also a 'Deaths' section that will show who was killed by who (and what), along with a detailed page showing all interactions with that player in the 5 seconds leading up to their death.
All of the individual areas (incoming and outgoing DPS/HPS/APS) have an overall graph, along with a breakdown by character. This quickly shows how each player or NPC interacted within the given encounter, and separates interactions into groups such as 'to NPCs' or 'from NPCs', as well as players and self. Next to each total column there are two icons, which allow you to dive a little deeper.
will give you a detailed breakdown that is grouped by
, and
will give you a detailed breakdown that's grouped by
, whether it's an NPC or a player. Graphs that are unavailable (usually because there is no data) will display
On top of the breakdowns per area (DPS/HPS/APS), you'll see a small
next to each record. Clicking
will show you the buffs seen (and their timers) on that character for the encounter, just as
will show you the debuffs seen on that character for the encounter.
Other notes
Clerics playing the Defiler soul will show up on breakdowns as a support class, due to the nature of the soul. This doesn't reflect the number of points spent in the soul or exactly how the soul is being used, but just the fact that the player is a Defiler.
Sessions that are created but have no logs uploaded for them will be removed after 7 days after the initial session creation.
For those people that like statistics, check out the
site stats
This site is not maintained by Trion, and while we make the effort to stay ahead of the curve and spend time on PTS to ensure that future logs will work as expected here, we can't guarantee that this will be the case. However, we can guarantee that we'll make every effort to fix all bugs or issues that we find (and those that are reported by you)!
Limited support is available in-game via
[email protected]
[email protected]
, but the best option is to email
[email protected]
For the most recent updates and known issues, check out
this page!


text:
I try to keep this blog mostly fashion related, but the truth is I also look at this as a personal time capsule; I want to be able to look back on this and know what I was feeling, what my life was like. I have a bad memory. I tried keeping more than one blog up to date but failed - so every several months or so, you might have to skip over a slightly off-topic, more personal post. Feel free to gloss over this whole post if you're just here for the fashion.
Lately, I've been in a transient state of cloudy discernment and emotional regression.
And I've been lost. I've been completely lost.
I'm telling you now that the New Year, remaining loyal to my tradition, hasn't started until I say it has begun. I can't bring myself to start off the year with such a feeling of bewilderment; I need a direction and I need it to be pointing forward. Instead, I'm looking over my shoulder and blindly tripping over everything ahead of me. What is missing inside of me that keeps me absolutely fixated on the past, especially in what should be new beginnings?
I guess I'm just lost.
Yet, here I am in one piece and breathing easily, my heart a little abnormal but still beating. Where is the tragedy in my ordinary life, and what is so wrong with today that makes me want to drown myself in my past? I'm starting to think that I don't know how to function without chaos and heartache in my life. It's all I ever knew and at times I'm hopeless without it, desperately searching for something to keep me from ever being content. Sometimes I'm afraid of contentment, because I never want to stop looking for more.
My past week in particular was a lachrymose fairytale with me, the dubious heroine: it was both beautiful and utterly disastrous. I went from being miserable to giggling my face off and making the most of an awful weekend and having a huge fight with people I love. I attempted to see my dad, failed, tried again, failed. Made a similar attempt to see my grandfather, failed, gave up and resigned myself to the idea that hell, my family didn't want me there in the first place. I sank into a friend's couch, feeling both defeated and vindicated at the same time, because this was always the universe's plan for me and I knew - I just knew that it would all fall apart. Woe is me, boo-hoo-hoo. New Year's traditions and anything to do with my father are always a tragedy; to act as though this was all a great shock is misleading and selfish. I made a three hour drive to escape bad memories and ended up looking for more of them. Isn't that the epitome of teen angst? And here I am, twenty five. I consider myself a generally happy person and it doesn't take much to make me ecstatic, but I slip up from time to time. The past several months, it has been more like time to time to time, time, time.
To a great extent, we make our own happiness and create our own misery. I went and found the latter, but after renting a car and treading to my friend's place, something (and someone) made me want to discard it for the former. So, we went to St. Augustine, because it was too cold for rides at Disney World.
St. Augustine: you, a friend and a pair of starlight glasses saved my weekend and gave me a bit of clarity. Maybe it was the haze from my teary swollen eyes but by golly, you felt like something out of a dream. A very chilly, very pretty, very welcome little dream. I might be feeling a little lost again and I'm positive it's self-imposed...but dear, pretty, ghostly St. Augustine, I do love the way your lights danced and temporarily brought me out of the doldrums and halfway into the new year.
My original New Year's resolution was to be a better person, whatever that means. With the way things have been going, I'm not sure if I'm there yet or will be there anytime soon. Instead, for right now, I intend to keep dreaming in the daylight and keeping calamity at bay. I need a little sunshine, a little clarity, a little bit of fantasy and a lot of love. Reality is obviously a little too mundane for me, which just sends me into disarray. I've always been a night owl - it's when I feel most creative, most compelled to write, to love, to apologize and forgive. I just need to figure out how to keep that constant through my days, to keep my idle hands from starting fires just to entertain. I need adventure; I need to start living a little more. I need to be happier, always. For that, I think my dailies should at least resemble my nightly reverie. It isn't as though my dreams are ever that unreasonable. I can't decide if this is an achievable goal or if I am just kidding myself.
I've always believed that what the stars ignite, the sun will smother. Is it possible to keep on dreaming in the daylight, or should I just resign myself to sleep forever?
Whatever the right answer may be, I hope that my New Year starts tomorrow. I miss being little miss sunshine.
Love love,
Keiko Lynn

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Whether you're a McCarthy fan or not – gotta love this quote (from jsonline here). Especially love the bold part (my bold):
"The punting performance is the finest punting – I can't tell you how good this feels to say this – this is the finest punting performance I've – I'm not exaggerating, I'm not dramatic – the finest punting performance that I've ever been a part of in all my years on both sides of the ball. I can't tell you how happy I am for Tim. It makes me want to cry. I thought he was tremendous. That was, you talk about a field-position game. I thought that was remarkable. He just needs to do it every week now and we'll be fine."
While this does seem like over-the-top gushing, the fact is, anytime a punter has a game putting 5 punts inside the 20, it's a great game. (Ironically, of his 9 punts yesterday, Seattle's Jon Ryan put 5 punts inside the 20 too.) Still, Masthay was fantastic yesterday and considering he's still a rookie – I think it's not unreasonable to believe that he will end up being a considerable upgrade over the guys who've been here in recent years.


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Thursday, September 30, 2010
Goodbyes all around
Goodbye, mossy green Milan. You were a good car for me. The perfect size. In a color that brought compliments. Decent gas mileage. A backseat that fit my hockey bag perfectly. Sorry about the door dings. And that scuffed hubcap. My bad.
Goodbye, 'brary Boss. When I came in to work today and learned that you had "resigned" (nobody believes that), effectively immediately, I was shocked. I still am. I hope that you're okay. And I hope that your family is okay. And I hope that the reason that I suspect you left is completely wrong.
Goodbye, 'brary Coworker. So you "resigned," too? On the same day. Also without notice. Crazy.
Goodbye, Favorite Granola Bars from Trader Joe's That Apparently Won't Be Stocked At Trader Joe's Anymore. I've looked for you, my heart full of hope, for six months now. I am starting to come to terms with the fact that you will no longer be a staple of my lunches. My heart is broken. My heart will go on.
Goodbye, Half-Marathon Training Plan. I'm sure I won't miss you much, on account of my never following your guidance. Or maybe I will. Two hours into my half-marathon when I have no idea how I'm going to finish.
Goodbye, Dream House. I am going to stop looking at your listing. Because you and me? We're not going to happen. It isn't you. It isn't your hardwood floors or your stainless steel appliances or your blissfully low asking price. It's me. And my bank account. And my employment situation. And some crappy timing.
Goodbye, September. You were one of the most tumultuous months of my life. I won't miss you a bit.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
A little here, a little there
I just finished reading Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin. I don't normally read those pink-and-girly-shoe-or-purse-on-the-cover-chick-lit sorts of books and apparently there's a reason for that: I don't really care for 'em.
It is Restaurant Week here in the D and, last night, two of my work friends took me out for an early birthday celebration. We snagged reservations at a real local establishment – one of those places you know by name and reputation, even if you've never dined there. ...which I hadn't.
The meal was delightful.
First Course: Roasted Corn and Crab Bisque (Garnished with cilantro lime crème fraîche)
Second Course: Mélange of Shellfish (Sautéed shrimp, scallops and lobster on a bed of angel hair pasta with lobster Champagne sauce, garnished with crisp filo pastry and broccoli florets)
Third Course: Mango Crème Brûlée (Mango-accented baked custard, topped with caramelized sugar and fresh berries)
And, while the Restaurant Week menus have a fixed, reasonable price and my dates obviously knew what they were in for, I felt quite guilty letting them buy me dinner. Especially with the knowledge that one of the girls is struggling financially. I'm sure she could've spent that money elsewhere, you know?
Her birthday is in a few weeks. Note to self: come up with something fantastic.
How much coffee is too much coffee? Because I'm turning into one of those people who downs a minimum of three cups a day. And seriously not enough water. Who has a trick for that?
My half-marathon is in just under three weeks. Fear! Panic!
Just in time, all of my running technology is failing me. My iPod shuffle is completely dead and no longer being recognized by my computer when I plug it is and therefore seems to be destined to join my iPod Nano in the electronics graveyard that is the bottom drawer of my desk. Which leaves me with my second generation iPod. Awesome. I might as well run with my laptop strapped to my arm.
My heart rate monitor has also taken a turn for the worse. The watch battery died. I got the watch battery replaced. And then it died again. And I got it replaced. And then the battery in the monitor died.
I don't need any of those newfangled toys to run the half-marathon. I just need to run. Which, unfortunately, I'm probably not doing quite enough of, with all of the fancy restaurant birthday celebrations and dog park visits and two jobs and assorted other foolishness. I'll be paying for it on October 17!
And, just for good measure, Meg and I are running a 10K on Sunday. We're also registered for the 10K on Thanksgiving Day.
I should mention that we both continue to insist that we're not runners.
Denial much?
I don't consider myself a big TV watcher but OMG, GOSSIP GIRL AND GREY'S ANATOMY ARE BACK ON.
I'm also filling my DVR with episodes of Detroit 187 and Hardcore Pawn (a reality show about a pawn shop in Detroit), to fill my quota of hometown pride, as well as My Generation, to fill my quota of Class of 2000 pride (although I hear it is just horrible).
Anything else that should be on my radar? I have a few seasons of Weeds on DVD, in addition to all of Dexter and Mad Men. And little to no time.
But, like my "to read" list, my "to watch" list is always growing. And growing and growing and growing. I'll never catch up and I don't care. So - suggestions! Hit me up.
Monday, September 27, 2010
A-Z, instantly
There's no tucking that idea away. There's no reconsideration. I have the idea. And I want to execute. I want to execute now. I want to execute perfectly.
It's like I've been wired incorrectly. Like something in my head skips like a record. Skips the next verse. Goes to the chorus. Jumps to the end.
I can't just apply for a job. I have to apply for a job and dream about where I'm going to live and worry about how I'm going to find a soccer team and determine how long it would take me to drive home for Thanksgiving.
I can't just meet a boy. I can't just meet and boy and like him. I have to consider how well our names would sound together. I have to like him so much that when he disappoints me it tears me into two even though he's not my boyfriend and never was.
I can't just work out. I have to work out with a goal and feel guilty when I'm not focused on that goal and I need to keep a calendar about the goal and I need to buy special shoes to reach that goal.
I can't entertain an idea. I have to research it, instantly. I have to make an outline. I have to determine if it is feasible. I have to know how to get there.
I can't let things be. I am always meddling. Always planning. Always making a list. Always checking off of that list. Never satisfied. Never, never satisfied.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Dad is out of town for the weekend, so I've stayed with Mom. We haven't done much of anything, other than catch up on the contents of her DVR (Detroit 187 and Hardcore Pawn on Friday night; Project Runway and On the Road With Austin & Santino last night) and eat Chinese food. I think that's okay.
I'm so proud of my mom. She is so tough. We didn't stay in and watch TV and eat Chinese food and hang out with the dogs because she cannot leave the house. Or because she's inconsolable. Or because she can't function or anything like that. We did it because that's what we like to do. She is holding her head high. She is handling herself with enviable amounts of dignity.
I haven't written much about this whole discovering-Dad-is-having-an-affair ordeal since it all came out. I think about what I want to write, but I never write it. The words came much easier when it was in the abstract. When I was suspicious. Now it is part of my life. Part of who I am. I have a sister. I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. I play soccer. My hair is curly. My dad cheated on my mom.
It is incredibly real.
Eventually, I will write about it. I will tell you all about how angry Meg is. I'll write about the questions that Mom asks me and the conversations that we've had. I'll tell you about how I'm doing. I'll explain my feeling that, no matter how this all turns out, we're all going to be okay.
Friday, September 24, 2010
We met in the snack aisle
He stopped me because of the t-shirt that I was wearing. UM hockey. "Are you a fan?"
We chatted about it for a minute. And our conversation slipped over into soccer – he plays, too – and then slipped to education/career (he also graduated from UM and is a graphic designer. In addition to being a Trader Joe's associate. And teaching guitar lessons. But whatever.) and the year we graduated from high school (both of us representin' the class of 2000) before jumping back to soccer.
"I play on a team on Monday nights, you should play with us!" He's handing me his card, telling me to see about joining his team. Seeing, of course, requires me to call Colin. Colin who runs the league. Not that Trader Joe knows that. But, seriously. It couldn't be easy, right?
I haven't seen about joining his team. My Mondays are a little stretched for the next few weeks. I wouldn't be a reliable player. And I haven't called him or emailed him or even looked him up on Facebook, believe it or not. I guess I could? Maybe tell him that I'd be happy to be a sub for his team through the end of this session.
I don't know why I haven't. Bothered to get into contact with him, I mean.
I've been running (literally – like training for a half-marathon) a lot this week but I've also been doing a lot of not-work-at-work this week so surely I can send an email except for, I don't know. I have no excuse. Unless "ugh, blah" is an excuse.
And I wonder why I'm single.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Travel Thursday: South Africa Day 4
We had Day 4 planed out before we got to South Africa. In the morning, we would head to Rosebank, where we would go to the African Craft Market. In the evening, we had the Brazil vs Côte d'Ivoire match at Soccer City.
The day worked out exactly as planned. We took a cab to the African Craft Market. It is right outside of a mall and, like any craft market you'd go to in any country, it was totally crazy and filled with vendors handing you their goods or asking you to step inside of their stall or whatever. Typical.
We bought a lot. Jewelry. A few vuvuzelas (you know, those buzzing horns that annoyed everyone who was watching the games on TV). We admired scarves and animals carved out of wood. We bought a few gifts for others and a few more gifts for ourselves. And, at one point, we ran out of Rand and I had to find an ATM machine inside the mall while Meg stood at a stand with her hands full of bracelets for all of our cousins.
When we were through, we went into the mall for a quick lunch at a European-style cafe. The first game of the day was on TV and we had a quick, satisfying lunch. Since we the game we were attending didn't start until 8:30 pm, we had a little bit more time to kill and decided to stroll the mall.
And, then we got to the top floor. And - OMG. The African Craft Market is upstairs, too. And, like, 50 times the size of what is downstairs.
So we bought more.
I got a totebag for Colleen and a pair of flip flops for Lucy and...hmmm...I can't really remember anything else I bought upstairs. Maybe that was it. Whatever I bought, it was MORE on top of A LOT and, ahhhhh, I love shopping. I really do.
When we were all shopped out, we went back to the hotel with very little time to spare. We were actually supposed to leave for the game at 4:30 pm (traffic to Soccer City was always brutal, on top of a long walk from the parking lot into the stadium), but actually wasn't until 5:00 pm. Because Africa time isn't exactly as precise as American time.
We stopped at another hotel on our way, picking up a really nice family (a dad and his two sons who were around our age) from California. They had just arrived and they were SO EXCITED. It was kind of adorable to me at the time. Me, four days into the trip and feeling like an expert. We traded stories about what we had seen and what we planned to do and we gave them a little advice about what to expect at that night's match and over the course of their trip.
It was always nice meeting friendly, interesting people. Which is actually kind of funny for me to say, because I don't think that I lean towards either of those attributes. Put me in a bus with a bunch of strangers and, if they don't strike up a conversation, there probably won't be one. (I'm getting a little better with that.)
The stadium was gorgeous at night, all lit up. And the Brazil fans! So many and SO LOUD. We sat by this Brazilian woman and her husband and she was like a wild person. Standing up and screaming at the referees and waving her hands and, gosh, she must've burned a lot of calories. Her husband just chilled next to her. Except for when Brazil scored. Then he went wild.
Just before the game starts, we see these boys who are clearly Scandinavian. Hey! We're Scandinavian! So Meg trots up there and sees their Norwegian flag and tells them that we're Norwegian, too. And gets a picture, obviously, because that's what you do.
And that's part of what made the World Cup so cool. Because, yes, you might be seeing Brazil and Côte d'Ivoire play a match, but the whole world is still going to be there. Or so it felt. It felt like we were forever surrounded by the whole world.
And that's a really awesome feeling.
You know what else was an awesome feeling? Feeling the whole building hum with the sounds of vuvuzelas when Côte d'Ivoire had a free kick. We learned pretty quickly that South Africans, if they weren't rooting for South Africa, were rooting for the other African nations.
While we were in Brazil gear, we were certainly becoming great fans of the nation of South Africa and, thus, were happy to cheer for Côte d'Ivoire to do well, too.
It didn't terribly matter to us who won, just as long as it was a good match.
And it was.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
I'm whiny this week
She meant librarianship.
We were having yet another quarterly review. Another quarterly review where she tells me how great that I'm doing, wonders aloud how I can manage to hold down two jobs without losing my mind, suggests that perhaps someone will retire (which, if I'm lucky, will mean merely an increase in hours, rather than a full-time position) and assures me that she completely supports my looking elsewhere and promises me that she will do anything within her power to help me advance my career.
"I used to be such a cheerleader for this profession," she sighed.
You and me both, lady.
I bought into the hype. I went to graduate school buying everything that my grad school was selling. About a massive wave of retirements that would bring a shortage of librarians. More open positions than qualified candidates to fill them.
I didn't research their claims and that is entirely my fault.
Library schools are churning out armies of graduates. And then there are schools like mine, which cannot resist the temptation of offering the program completely online, too. Just to flood the market just a little more.
There's something like four library school graduates to every one job.
I made a mistake.
A really expensive mistake.
Monday, September 20, 2010
I went running as soon as I got up yesterday morning and, to pass the time, I like to look at all of the houses that are for sale (this is Michigan and, thus, there are generally quite a few to check out as I'm pounding the pavement) and decide if it is somewhere I would like to live.
I've been running in a really adorable downtown area that is surrounded by these cute, mature neighborhoods with yards that are just the right size and houses that don't all look the same and, seriously, I'm a little in love with it. The only thing better would be living on a lake but, come on, the only way I'm going to have a house on a lake is if I double my income. And by that I mean get married.
That's another subject entirely.
Back to the run.
So, I'm jamming to my iPod – probably to something slightly embarrassing in any situation except when you're workin' on your fitness – and I turn down a street that I've never been down and…oooooh la la. Look at that house that is tiny and adorable.
I don't know what made me remember the name of the realtor. Or what inspired me to look it up online after I got home.
But that adorable damn house is even cuter on the inside. And cheap. Really cheap.
Of course. Of course it is just beyond my reach.
I can't buy a house.
Nothing in my life is stable and, if I've learned anything in the last few years, I've learned that investing in real estate when you're on shaky ground is pretty much the worst idea ever.
I can't buy a house when I haven't yet landed that new job. That new job that I keep applying for. That I need sending out résumés in search of. That new job that is so bloody elusive that it is driving me absolutely insane. That new job that is located in Metro Detroit. In Kalamazoo. In North Carolina. In Germany.
I hate this, in case you were wondering. I hate this, working 60 hours a week and looking for a job and renting and apartment and WAITING ALL THE TIME for my stupid fortunes to change.
Being an adult fucking sucks.
I really love that house.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
She gets around
Understandable, really. I get why she wasn't really keen on hanging out with one of my dad's high school friends when my dad's recent desire to relive high school is what seemingly led him to his affair in the first place.
On Friday night, she went to stay with a friend. A friend who she went to high school with. Well, who they both went to high school with.
(I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but for those of you who may not know: my mom and dad went to high school together. The same high school that Meg and I graduated from.)
This friend, Barbie, was my one of my mom's very best friends. Barbie also married a boy who they went to high school with. A boy who turned out to be a dog, cheating on her multiple times before they finally divorced.
Cheating on her with a few hockey moms from their son's team.
Cheating on her with some randoms.
Cheating on her WITH THE SAME CHICK WHO MY DAD WAS RUNNING AROUND WITH.
So, yeah. Skank.
I kind of wonder if she's making her way through the yearbook and checking off her conquests as she goes along.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Well, I don't know if she's his girlfriend. I don't know how those in the 50+ age bracket label their relationships these days. All I know is that I called my dad a few days ago and the first thing he said to me was "I just got off of the phone with Emma. Her dad just told her that he has a girlfriend."
...and I bit my tongue to keep myself from responding with "did you tell her that you have one, too?"
But this isn't about my douchy father.
Well, it sort of is.
I would be a lot more rattled by learning that my uncle is dating if my immediate family hadn't recently imploded. My sorrow bank is bursting at the seams; I cannot make any more deposits.
But I recognize what it is. I realize what it means. I hear it in my grandma's voice. I look at the calendar and I see that it hasn't yet been a year. I think that's what we were all counting on. 365 days to get used to the idea that he'd let another woman into his life. And because it hasn't been a year – and won't be until mid-November – it is just shocking enough to be knocked breathless by the news.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Shine some light on it
It started off okay. My alarm clock (which doubles as me cell phone) chirped me out of bed just when it is supposed to – 5:45 – and I turned it off and stumbled into the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea before getting in the shower.
I flipped the light switch four or five times. I checked to see if the clock on the microwave was illuminated. I looked out the window to see if the occupants of any other apartments in my building had their lights on.
Yes, apparently the electricity was really out. Damn.
I stood in my kitchen and evaluated my options. And then I went back to bed.
I set my alarm clock for 30 minutes later. There would be no showering (not ideal, but I took a shower after I worked out last night), but I could get dressed and pack up my lunch by candlelight (how romantic!) and slap on some makeup once I got to work.
It worked out okay. My hair is a little funky, but that's what ponytails are for, eh?
Plus: 30 extra minutes of sleep? Someone out there was looking out for me. With the start of hockey season (we're playing at 10 pm on Thursday nights), Thursdays have transformed into even more of a marathon day. Because working 7:30 am – 9:00 pm just wasn't enough, I decided throw in an hour of hockey at the end of the day. Tranquil, lazy days such as Thursdays shouldn't end until well after midnight. You know, just to really stretch it out. So that I can savor it.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Keep going
It feels like it was much longer than that. Last Wednesday, the day that I sat at my desk and wiped away tears for 10 hours, seems months ago.
I am distancing myself from this. Fast. And I'm doing it the only way that I know how: by being busy. Busy with work. Busy visiting my cousins. Busy cleaning my apartment. Busy with my best friends, who are quietly supportive and quick to schedule distractions. Busy exercising. Busy with the start of my hockey season. Busy bringing the girls to the dog park. Busy learning fantasy football. Busy checking in on Meg, who I'm still worried about. Busy reading healthy living blogs. Busy trying to keep my head above water.
I'm afraid to stop. I'm afraid that, if I stop, this will all soak in. I was hit by a torrential downpour, but maybe if I keep going, I can shed the droplets before they have the chance to reach my skin.
And so I keep running. I keep going. I focus on what is directly ahead of me. I pretend not to notice the length of this unfortunate path as I keep my eyes forward; I am always moving, trying to dodge the raindrops.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Yeah, I know I'm an asshole.
Speaking of my being an asshole: one of my coworkers is consistently 20-30 minutes late for work in the mornings. During that 8:30-9:00 am timeslot, someone inevitably stops in to see her or needs something from her or has a question for her or whatever. When they can't find her, they come to me. And it annoys me. I should be really gracious and happily cover for her until she shows up. Especially since she was the one who went to bat for me when I proposed my leaving the office for a few hours twice a week when I'm at the library. Especially because she consistently works really, really late. Especially because she deals with way, way more bullshit than I ever deal with. But, instead, it just irritates me. If you're regularly 20 minutes late, GET UP 20 MINUTES EARLIER.
Like I said, I'm an asshole.
Things with my family: are okay, I guess. I'll write more about it later in the week.
As a result of all of this crap with my family, I have decided that I need some more brainless and fluffy in my mind, thus: I'm incredibly fired up for the season premiere of Gossip Girl tonight. And I just put aside the unfinished novel that I had been reading in order to begin the book equivalent to a chick flick.
The second best part of the weekend was: taking Ellie and Blue to the dog park with Lucy and her dog, Wolf. We have gotten into a pretty regular routine of taking the puppies up to the dog park on Sunday mornings. It is an hour that is really well-spent. I get a little bit of time to gossip and drink coffee with Lucy. I find watching the dogs act like maniacs to be terribly entertaining. We get a little time to enjoy the outdoors. The dogs come home and are completely exhausted for at least 24 hours.
The only thing that could make the dog park better is an influx of single men. Seriously. If I see another cute dude show up with his wife/girlfriend and their adorable dog, I may vomit.
Actually, no. That isn't even true. The dog park is so awesome that even really-cute-but-attached dudes cannot ruin it for me.
I'm going to pretend to be a big girl: and go to the car dealership all by myself to figure out the lease/buy on my next sweet ride. Anyone have any good advice?
Friday, September 10, 2010
I don't know much of anything
I don't know why I just don't ask if the 'rents want me to stop by or if they'd rather have a weekend of solitude, except that it would be awkward and difficult and I'm just really tired of dealing with awkward and difficult things.
I don't know anything about fantasy football, yet I have teams in two different leagues.
I don't know if I should pick up The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest where I left off (about halfway through) when all of this family stuff exploded or if I should just start over.
I don't know if I should tell my aunts/cousins/family why my mom isn't attending this weekend's birthday festivities or direct them to ask my dad why she isn't there or just make up some story to save face.
I don't know why I would even consider telling other family members about all of this crap without the consent of my mom and dad. I wouldn't. When this all went down, I so wanted to call Anna (who had dealt with enough of her own crap) or Liz (who has been in France for the last two weeks) and I'm quite glad that I did not.
I don't know what color to choose for my new car.
I don't know if I want my dad to accompany me to the dealership when I'm negotiating my new lease because, while he works in the industry and obviously knows way more about this stuff than I do, I'm really not sure I feel like dealing with it.
I don't know how I'm going to make it through my workday after a Thursday that went a little something like this: 7:30 am-2:30 pm work, 3:00 pm-9:00 pm work, 10:00-11:00 pm hockey, 11:30 pm-12:15 am ramen-eating-and-email-checking.
I don't know if I should call home every night (which, typically, is what I do) or if I should just wait for Mom to call me when she wants to talk because, well, the 80 seconds I was on the phone with her yesterday really wasn't pleasant and didn't seem all that beneficial to either of us and was mostly awful and made me feel like crap.
I don't know for sure, but I think my heart is a little broken.
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Tequila, vampires and the best friends a girl can have
I really like Jewish holidays. It may be just because it is tradition that I have not been witnessing my entire life, but the symbolism is always really beautiful and intriguing to me.
Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. And, goodness, I needed a symbolic fresh start. And a few shots of tequila. And the apples dipped in honey, eaten with hopes for a "sweet" new year.
I ate a lot of apples and honey.
When I left, Lucy handed me this gift bag.
Filled with treats from her, Chet and Colleen.
Chocolate, a candle, tissues and season 1 of The Vampire Diaries.
And a sweet card. Made a little less sweet.
Because they are awesome.
I have the best friends.
And that most certainly includes all of you.
Though you're not here physically, pouring me shots of tequila and buying me junk food, I certainly feel all of the good vibes you all have been sending my way. Your comments and emails and prayers and positive thoughts and tweets are so appreciated. (And - bonus! - lower in calories.)
I don't know how I got so lucky, to have such a great group of people in my corner. Please know that you all kick incredible amounts of ass. And, while I hope that you never need me to buy you dark chocolate or to send you an email to remind you to keep your chin up, if that time ever comes, I will gladly return the favor.
I think you're awesome.
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Secret's out
Last night. After work. He told her. I don't know what he told her. I don't know how much he told her. All I know is that he sent Meg a confirmation text after he did it. "I did it. She won't talk. It's over."
Meg relayed the message.
I left from soccer immediately and drove home. Frantically. All I wanted was to see my mom. To look at her with my own eyes and know that she wasn't collapsing. I needed to know that she was okay.
I stormed into the house, my face already red and tear stained.
She was in the kitchen, standing at the counter, sorting through some papers for work. Her eyes were red but she was not crying. She was standing upright, not curled onto the floor in the fetal position. But for my urgent entrance, the house was eerily quiet. The news was not playing on the television. There was nothing being cooked on the stove. The dogs didn't bark. There was nobody typing on the computer in the next room.
"Are you okay, Mommy?" I'm not sure that the question was fully out of my mouth before I was crying. Sobbing, actually. Harder than I can ever remember crying. I went to my mom to give her a hug but, really, she was the one who hugged me. As I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. My legs were shaking. My teeth chattered as I gasped for breath. She was wearing a tank top and I drenched her shoulder, leaving it drippy and slippery from my uncontrollable flood of tears.
I apologized. Over and over and over I apologized. "I'm so sorry," I told her. "I didn't want to find anything, Mom. I'm sorry."
And I begged her. "Please, Mom. Please try. Try to work it out, Mom. Please." I've never begged like that before, with such desparation. I never knew I could feel like that. Ready to bargain absolutely anything in order to meet my demands. "Promise me, Mom. Promise me that you'll try."
She never did.
"We'll see what happens," was all that she said. It wasn't long after I arrived. It was before I asked. It was before I begged. I presumed that the statement was regarding her marriage.
I asked her. I begged her. All I wanted was for her to say that she would try.
She never did.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
I've entered the crying stage
Or so he says.
Yesterday, Meg told him that he had until Wednesday to tell Mom or we'd do it ourselves. He implied that, by doing so, we'd end our family as we know it. Like letting out the SECRET is the problem, not his selfish fucking actions that was the match to this fire.
I believe that he honestly thought that we would keep this secret for him.
He asked for time. He said that he wanted to talk to us later in the week. He wanted, basically, to talk us out of our ultimatum.
When we left the house yesterday, we left it at that. I spent most of the night feeling sick. Telling my mom is the right thing to do – I really believe that – but knowing that her knowledge of the truth could finish off their marriage is terribly scary for me. Their strong marriage is all I have ever known. My secure family has always been enviable. I've never had to even consider life with my parents as two separate units. This incident has cracked me. Divorce will tear a gaping chasm in my foundation.
I'm relatively okay with knowing that my mom and dad's marriage isn't perfect. I'm significantly less okay with it not existing.
He changed his Facebook password this morning. Meg called him out on it and he said it was because he felt like his privacy was being invaded.
Like that fucker deserves the right to privacy.
And then he told her that, other than the Facebook request, he hadn't been in contact with the other woman. Yet he knew about the message Meg sent her yesterday. It doesn't add up.
And he said that he would tell Mom tonight and that he knew, with certainty, that it would result in one of them moving out of the house. Maybe he's just trying to scare us. Maybe he believes that it is true.
God, I hope he's wrong. I hope they fight for this. I hope that my mom reacts exactly how I've envisioned her reacting: with a lot of rage and a determination to keep their marriage together so that she can make his life a living hell for as long as it takes for her to get over what he did.
I'm not angry anymore. I'm fucking terrified.
And it continues
"I'm really sorry for hurting you and your sister," the woman said.
"You forgot my mom, BITCH."
I'm still a little in awe of how Meg went from not knowing there was a problem, to accusing my father, to forcing him to call the other woman, to verbally bitch slapping the woman all within an hour. It took me a week to get to the same point where she was after 45 minutes.
While I did focus a lot on what was said to the other party, please don't think that my dad hasn't heard his fair share from the two of us.
She forgot the part where Meg told her never to contact our father again:
Meg logged in to Dad's Facebook account and unfriended the woman. After all, she'd been quite clear that they were to cease all contact.
And then the other woman requested him as a friend today. Seriously. She got a message from Meg that started with "I told you not to contact my father again," ended with "stay away from my family" and had a few other choice words in between.
I would like to believe that this woman is reaching out to him and that it isn't being reciprocated, but I am not entirely sure. My dad's phone hasn't been out of his sight since this all went down on Saturday afternoon. He hasn't so much as taken it out of his pocket unless it is to use it. And I'm not really in the place to give him the benefit of the doubt. As a matter of fact, I'm far from it.
Meg is angry:
I hate seeing how this has hurt her. She's worshipped him for her entire life. Watching him fall from the pedestal she placed him on has been really, really hard. She's crying a lot. She can't concentrate on her schoolwork. She can't be civil with him. When she went to Mom and Dad's house today (we had Mom's birthday party! Joyous!), she only called him by his first name. She told him that she wouldn't hesitate to exclude him from her life.
Witnessing this is breaking my heart. Meg is so deeply wounded and I can't fix it.
I am confused:
Unlike Meg, I'm doing a decent job of pretending that this isn't happening. I can have a conversation with my father. I can, to some extent, be around him. I'm a little ashamed that I'm not more angry, that I don't have the venom spilling out of me that Meg does, but I think that part of the reason that I'm more subdued is that I've been dealing with this for a week longer than Meg has. And maybe another part of the reason is simply that I'm in a bit of denial. I'm not forcing my dad to have conversations. I'm not calling him out on anything. I feel like I'm letting Meg do all of the hard work and have the hard conversations. Why can't I ever have a spine? Why can't I be anything other than the backroom technical support?
My friends are holding us up:
Lucy and Colleen have really stepped up to the plate in the last few days. On Sunday morning, they met me at the dog park and took me to breakfast when we were through. When I told them about how badly Meg was taking it - and about how I was thinking about going to her apartment that night - they volunteered to come with me.
We spent our Sunday night in Meg's apartment, drinking it out and singing it out. After a stop at the grocery store - for tequila and junk food - we played UNO and SingStar and did shots and, of course, talked a bit about the situation at hand. It certainly solved nothing but, for a few hours, it was a distraction without avoidance. We all knew that it happened. We weren't trying to pretend that it wasn't an issue. We talked about it sometimes. And other times, we focused on our card games and finding a slice of lemon to chase down that shot of tequila.
It was a quiet show of support that I didn't even know I needed until I was getting it. They were there. Physically there. And that is all I needed.
What a waste:
This weekend was the first time since I returned home from South Africa - more than two months ago - that I had more than one consecutive day off of work.
Thanks for ruining it for me, Dad.
Monday, September 06, 2010
Meg goes for the throat
Meg and Dad "went to the store." I stayed at home because, well, it all happened so quickly and I didn't really want to draw any more attention to what was going on. ...my mom was at the house, doing a bit of work in her office, during this entire ordeal.
Meg, who is closer to Dad, didn't pull any punches. She didn't give him sympathy. She didn't pretend that anything about the situation was okay. She forced him to admit to it. That this woman had given him head and that he was "dealing with the guilt."
"Call her," Meg told him. "I want to talk to her."
Dad said that he would have to think about it. But, when he crutched into the pharmacy to pick up his prescriptions, he sent The Other Woman a text message, asking her to call.
And, shortly after he got to the car, she did.
"Meg wants to talk to you." He handed over the phone.
"You CUNT." That's how Meg started her rant. I don't remember exactly everything she said, but it was good. It was really good. It was angry and mean and so, so much truth. "How dare you do that. How dare you be so disrespectful to go into another woman's home. With pictures of me and my sister all around. Who do you think that you are? How would you feel if there was another woman in your home? How would that feel?"
"I would feel a lot like you did," she answered. "I am so, so sorry."
"You stay away from my family," Meg said to her. "No phone calls. No emails. No text messages. No Facebooking. Stay away."
She went on and on and on. "I've never yelled at anyone like that before," she admitted to me at home, while showing me her shaking hands. "Nothing even close to that."
At one point, she got so vicious that my dad told her to stop. "Oh no," she told him, "I will stop when I am done."
They came home with sweet tea vodka, lemonade and Dad's prescriptions.
"Who wants a drink?" Meg asked, cheerfully, as she burst in the front door upon their return. I could see the tears in her eyes.
"I do!"
I've never answered that question so quickly in my life.
Pressing for the truth
"I don't think that he even went to work today," I gasped at the end of my nonsensical explanation of the suspected infidelity.
Meg left the bathroom, calmly, and went into her bedroom. "Hey! Dad! Come here!"
"Were you at work today?"
"Yes, why?"
I listened from the bathroom as she repeated some of my suspicions.
"Nothing's going on," he insisted. He crutched away.
It happened again. I spilled more information. She called him in the room again. He denied it again. This time, angry, I rushed out of the bathroom.
"I don't know what the fuck you're doing and I don't want to know, but you better shut it down, Dad. Shut it down now."
All at once, he denied any wrongdoing and agreed to my demands.
"He's lying," I said to Meg after he had retreated once again. I had gone into her room, in my towel, and closed the door. My back was turned to her. I stood facing the door, looking into the mirror that hangs on the back of it, and brushed my hair.
It was then when I told her exactly what those text messages read.
She bolted out of the house.
And, when she returned, it was clear that she had been crying. When my father found the nerve to ask why, she spit it at him. "Because I just found out that the only man in my life who has never lied to me just did."
Sunday, September 05, 2010
A few hours before we were leaving for the Lady Gaga concert. I came home early, change of clothes in tow, so that Meg and I could go for a run together. And that's what we did - cranked out seven miles while singing and executing silly dance moves.
When we came home, Dad was there. He'd been at work. And, suddenly, it struck me that he probably wasn't at work. That his office was probably closed due to the holiday weekend.
And I was suspitious.
So, when he sat down on the couch and was playing with the dogs and talking to my mom and my sister, I went to the drawer where he generally throws his wallet and cell phone when he gets home. The phone was there. I slipped into the next room and opened up his text messages.
And there it was. A text message sent late on Friday night. Something along the lines of "I'm going to go to bed now so that tomorrow morning comes faster and I can be in your arms."
I scrolled up to earlier text messages. From her: "about that sword swallowing comment that you made earlier, that is ABSOLUTELY nothing that I have ever done before."
I wanted evidence, yes. What I didn't want was to read about some old hag sucking my dad off.
I closed his phone. I put it back. And I felt like I was going to vomit.
A few minutes later, I looked at it again. I was in the kitchen. My mom was right there. I considered showing her the text messages. Just getting it over with.
I put the phone back.
I went to my bedroom and I paced around. I needed to get ready for the concert. I needed to shower. I was robotic, pulling out my clothes and racing to the bathroom. I turned the shower on. "Just get in the shower," I told myself. "Just get in the shower."
I didn't. I pulled Meg into the bathroom with me.
"Would you tell Mom if you thought that Dad was cheating on her?"
"You think Dad is cheating on Mom?!"
"I'm sure of it."
Friday, September 03, 2010
Turning the corner
Lucy, Colleen and I have had a rough time of it lately.
Lucy was upset about Colleen's (heavy) drinking. Colleen was fairly depressed and couldn't get her medications straightened out. I was perfect (as usual) (just kidding) and felt like I was in the middle of it.
This has been going on for nearly a year now, since Colleen got plastered at my birthday and barfed in the middle of Lucy's living room, mere weeks from the Saturday night where she was hammered and puking at the bar at 9:00 pm. We've maybe hung out – the three of us – a dozen times in the last 11 months. And it is a shame, because we're a pretty kick-ass team, but I understood the circumstances.
For the longest time, I felt like I was in an unexplainable funk. I felt off and I didn't have a reason for it. What I was missing, I think, was our group. While both girls were still in my life (Lucy undoubtedly more than Colleen), I missed the dynamic of our silly little threesome of loud voices and signature dance moves and brutal honesty.
Recently, though, we've seemed to turn the corner. Colleen is acting like Colleen again. We had a few strictly non-alcohol events, followed by a few we'll-have-one-drink-in-the-backyard-events and progressing to the we're-going-to-the-bar-and-trusting-that-this-will-be-fine nights that we've had recently.
It couldn't have happened at a better time.
On Wednesday, I spilled (separately) to both of the girls about the mess that is going on with my family. Between those lengthy conversations, blogging and the very kind and very supportive emails and comments I've received, I feel like I can breathe again.
Hurray for great timing. Hurray for open ears.
Hurray for best friends!
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Travel Thursday: South Africa Day 3
The Lion Park was maybe an hour from where we were staying. So, I asked the owner of the hotel that we were supposed to be staying in (you may remember that our original hotel burned down a few weeks before we arrived) if she could arrange transportation for us to get to the Lion Park.
She drove us herself!
Which was so nice and so unnecessary for her to do. It was just a really, really kind gesture and we couldn't have appreciated it more.
At the park, you have two options: a self-drive through the park, where you're literally driving your car through these different areas where the prides of lions are just chillaxin', or a guided tour. We took the guided tour, in an open-air safari vehicle. It was definitely the right choice: we got all of the information from the guide and we got to see some areas of the park that aren't open for the public to drive through.
First we drove through an area with lots of plains animals. Including...zebras! Love the zebras. Don't love that we didn't pack the zoom lens for Meg's camera.
Then it was through the prides of lions. There were a few different areas - separated by fences - that houses different prides. It's sort of insane because there's really nothing separating you (driving on the dirt drive around their area) from the lions. Apparently lions are very habitual creatures. They're used the cars driving around them, so it isn't any big deal. If you drove your car onto the grass, though, they would be very unhappy.
It got a little bit hot 'n' heavy.
Awkward for us, but the lions didn't seem to mind. HA.
When we were done with the "game drive" portion of the Lion Park, we were dropped back out front, where we met this fine gentleman.
My boss (who is a tool) kept saying that I was going to go to Africa and end up married to a man with multiple wives. We took this picture for him.
And then we went to the other half of the park. The part where dreams come true. The part where you get to TOUCH A BABY LION CUB.
In case you were wondering: they're not as soft as they look.
Shakira went to the Lion Park when she was in South Africa for the World Cup final. That's how cool this place is. Frickin' Shakira (my favorite Shakira lyrics: "my breasts are small and humble, you don't confuse them with mountains.") goes there. As did most of the teams participating in the World Cup.
It was SO AWESOME.
When our precious few minutes with the lion cubs were over, we walked around a little bit to see the rest of the wildlife in the park. Including this gorgeous giraffe, which you could feed.
And this not so gorgeous ostrich, which I found to be very scary.
And then we went back to the hotel. Basking in the joy that is an afternoon at the Lion Park.
That night, we went to dinner in Melrose Arch, which is a pretty typical shopping/restaurant sort of an area with a big open square in the middle. Well, I would imagine that normally it is an open square. When we were there, every restaurant had extensive tents to maximize seating. We sat outside, watched the Denmark/Cameroon match, met a nice group of American guys from the midwest, and generally soaked in the atmosphere.
We went to bed very happy. Very full. And dreaming of baby lion cubs.
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Because I feel betrayed, too
To hold it together
I understand
Why alcohol is
In situations such as
Self medicating
(I'm not,
I think that I would
Like to)
Situations that are
And nothing
I ever signed up to deal with
I am on eggshells
Always on the verge of a phone call
To Lucy
To Meg
To Ashley
To my mom
Because holding this in,
Calculating my next move,
Is impossibly difficult,
A never-ending anxiety attack
And excruciatingly horrible
Blogging is a relief
But not a solution
Further research
(You may call this
Only continues
To solidify my
And make me
And generally solve nothing
I have
The skeleton
Of a plan
And a ton
Of anxiety
And doubts
That I can hold
My tongue
For all that much


text:
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text:
Cutting Through
British 'Catholic Voices' Shares Church Teaching on TV and Radio
LONDON — The Church and the mass media have not had an easy relationship in recent months. But a new initiative in Britain looks to change that.
With a papal visit coming in September, and no shortage of controversial material hitting the headlines, a group of lay Catholics came up with a radical new approach. "Catholic Voices" is an independent team of young Catholics who are prepared to go on TV or radio to tackle any issue that comes along.
The general picture for the Church as Britain awaits Pope Benedict XVI's visit is not a good one. The mass media never mentions the Pope without referring to the child-abuse crisis. The Times newspaper, among others, has called for his resignation, and a forthcoming TV documentary about him is to be hosted by a leading homosexual-rights campaigner who has previously interrupted Church services and is famous for his passionate opposition to Christian moral teachings. Church attendance among all denominations is low, and most pupils at Catholic secondary schools do not attend Mass regularly.
Further, the new government in Great Britain has recently emphasized its support for the homosexual lobby with a celebratory reception for homosexuals attended by Prime Minister David Cameron. Cameron has already voiced his opposition to the Pope on the homosexual rights issue.
In this climate, young Catholic defenders of the Church face many challenges. They will not be debating in a friendly climate.
"We are working for the Church and part of the Church, but in a sense independent of it," said Jack Valero, a coordinator of the project along with journalist Austen Ivereigh and broadcaster Kathleen Griffin. "We realized that it is laypeople who should be the experts here. We had the idea of creating a team of people who would be prepared to be trained to speak up in the media, and we put out a call for volunteers. We wondered how many would come forward, but we found huge numbers — they just kept on coming forward, and in the end, we had to close the doors because we had so many."
The call for volunteers was for Catholics between the ages of 20 and 40.
"We found that several came from the movements — Opus Dei, the Neocatechumenate (the Neocatechumenal Way), Communion and Liberation, and so on — but there are also a good many young people who are simply practicing their faith, living it out, active in their own local parishes and keen to speak up," said Valero. "I didn't have so much faith that we'd find so many; I thought we'd have to dig deep. But we were almost overwhelmed by the numbers."
The project took off this spring. "The plan was to train people from March to July, and then offer them to the media in August," Valero said. "But the huge publicity over the child-abuse issue of course came up, and so Austen and I had to tackle a lot of media interviews right away in March and April. In a sense, that was a good thing, because it showed the young people the practical realities right from the start. They were meeting us at the training sessions having already seen us on TV, and that gave them a lot of confidence."
No Stranger to Controversy
As a director of Opus Dei in Britain, Valero is no stranger to controversy. He was outspoken in the media, for example, when The DaVinci Code film, with its controversial portrayal of Opus Dei, was released. A genial Spaniard with an easy manner and a good sense of humor, his task in establishing the venture was not only to train the young volunteers, but also to raise funds.
"We worked out that we needed £50,000, and we got a donation of £25,000 right at the start," he said. "So far, we raised another £12,500, so we are well on the way. The training sessions are going extremely well. There's a lot of enthusiasm, and I'm impressed with the quality of the people we have recruited."
People like Daniel Cardona, a psychiatrist; Robert Colquhoun, the author of a book on John Paul II's theology of the body; Laura Crowley, a barrister; Jim Carr, a pharmacist; and Neil D'Aguiar, a teacher. They have all been attending training sessions in London. A recent session tackled the question of the Church and science, with talks on different subjects, then discussion, a time for questions, and practice in media tactics.
Volunteer Robert Colquhoun is enthusiastic: "The training so far has been really good: excellent sessions on the moral issues of the day, and then mock-up radio and TV interviews, and sessions where we get to see things from the media point of view. We're learning that we have to show what we can offer; we have to be ready to help. The interviewer wants to get a good program, and so do we — so we're all in this together."
As part of the training, the team has done some live broadcasting with Premier, a Christian radio station, taking part in debates about sex education and contraception.
"The response from the media has been great," Valero said. "The main problem has often been that a TV or radio program just can't get a Catholic to come and speak, especially at short notice. I went to the BBC and TV companies to market our team, and the reaction was simply: 'Yes — we want them!' We are finding that lots and lots of doors are opening."
The Voices team is ready to be media commentators. "We're all very keen and raring to go in the run-up to the Pope's visit," Valero said. "I think the project will pay multiple dividends in the longer term, too. It's great to have a team of down-to-earth people who are prepared to talk in a way that people can understand."
Valero says their voices are needed.
"The point to remember is that there is so much ignorance about religion and about religious beliefs," he said. "We need people who can explain the Catholic position simply and clearly — and who are ordinary people; who are teachers or lawyers or working in post offices or whatever — so that the listener will feel Now I understand and perhaps for the first time will see what the Church is saying."
Joanna Bogle writes from London.
You can meet the Catholic Voices team at www.catholicvoices.org.uk.


text:
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text:
Mitchell who depd
this life August the
2d 1746 aged 40 YEars
& David Mitchell
who depd this life
November the 7 1757
aged 76 years.
The old slate stone is mounted on a larger memorial that explains how the slate gravestone found its way to Ohio.
This David Mitchell, head of our line of Mitchells in America, born in 1681, probably near Oromore, County Down, N.E. Ireland, settled in S.W. Lancaster County, Pa., Drumore Twp. about 1713, and was buried in the Morrison graveyard, near Chestnut Level, Pa. where W. G. Mitchell, my brother, and I, personally found this tablet with other Mitchell graves.
Because the graveyard was being rapidly obliterated, we brought the tablet with us in 1928. David Mitchell's will, with other legal papers found in the records of Lancaster County Pa., "was duly proven Nov. 21, 1757." The children named in this will were Samuel, Jean, Abraham, Margaret, Heleanor, Sarah, George and David. Samuel and his wife are buried under this monument. (Erected in 1947)
The legend is signed J. F. Mitchell, who is identified on FindAGrave.com as James Franklin Mitchell (b. 1867, d. 1947).
J. F. Mitchell is buried near his ancestors in Mitchell Cemetery.
Does the old slate gravestone belong here or there? What would you do if you came upon a cemetery in serious disrepair? Would you collect your ancestor's stones to save them from possible destruction?
Mitchell Cemetery, Union County, Ohio


text:
Living and Working in Spokane
Spokane means "Children of the Sun" in the local native language. It is Eastern Washington's largest city, located 18 miles west of the Idaho border and 110 miles south of the Canadian border. A beautiful destination city surrounded by numerous lakes, rolling wheat fields and forested foothills leading to the Rocky Mountains, Spokane offers something for everyone. Residents enjoy four seasons of outdoor recreation including hiking, golf and skiing, and an array of renowned wineries and craft breweries.
Providence is at the heart of the vibrant health care community in the Inland Northwest. Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center and Children's hospital in Spokane is a full-service, 672 bed facility serving patients from across the state with a regional cancer center, transplant center and the only Level II Pediatric Trauma Center and Level IV NICU in Eastern Washington. Providence Holy Family Hospital, located in the fast-growing north Spokane County, has 270 beds and a range of medical surgical services as well as specialty support and outpatient services. At Providence Medical Park in Spokane Valley, outpatient surgery specialty services offered include Gastroenterology, Hand Therapy, Orthopedics and Vascular Imaging. Providence also has a network of specialist clinics serving local communities in the Greater Spokane area.
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